Tag: Fukushima coverup

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –
A Santa Barbara chef is taking extreme measures to keep his customers safe from what said is dangerous seafood.

Robert Perez has been a chef for more than three decades, but it was the nuclear disaster in Japan that changed the way he cooks.

In March 2011, a tsunami triggered by an earthquake rocked the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, causing radioactive materials to leak.

Even though scientists have said that the radiation in the ocean is now low, Perez isn’t buying it.

“The way things are heading, we just feel strongly that it is not safe, and I’m not going to consume the fish and I’m definitely not going to provide it to my guests. I just can’t do that with a clear conscience,” said Perez.

The menu at Seagrass changed slightly two years ago when the restaurant stopped using Japanese seafood. Around a year ago, Hawaiian fish was taken off the menu. Now, all seafood from the San Diego border to Alaska is gone.
The change has forced Perez to get his fish from Mexico, the Atlantic or even farther.

“Alpine, New Zealand salmon,” said Perez as he unwrapped a piece of fish. “It comes from glacier water.”

He believes he’s the only chef in the area making such strict choices on his food, because no one really talks about it.
“They go, ‘Fuku-what?’ It’s like the F-word. It’s like the other F-word, or maybe it’s the new F-word,” he said.

Scientist think avoiding the seafood is overboard and have said the levels of radiation in fish are less than what people are exposed to from x-rays.
Perez said he has to be able to stand behind what he serves, even if people think it’s extreme.

“It’s easy for people to be convinced that there’s no harm right now, and that’s part of the problem,” he said.

Although it’s an adjustment for customers, Perez said he’s not trying to stand out.

“That’s just part of who we are. And I cook because I want to please people. And I want people to be healthy with my food. I want them to feel good physically and spiritually. So that’s my intent, that’s the intent I put out there. So if I have a product that I feel uncomfortable with, and I don’t care if it’s an onion or a piece of meat or a piece of fish, it’s all the same. It has to be something that I can stand behind and say, ‘Please try this.'”

When it comes to environmental disasters, the nuclear fallout at Fukushima has to be amongst the worst that has happened in the past few decades. Andrew Kishner, founder of http://www.nuclearcrimes.org/ has put together a great resource of information that tracks what has been developing over time in Fukushima as it relates to the nuclear incident. You can check out his research further using the links below.

The following is written by Gary Stamper in regards to what has been happening with Fukushima.

“The heart-breaking news from Fukushima continues to get worse -a lot worse. It is, quite simply, an out-of-control flow of death and destruction.

TEPCO is finally admitting that radiation has been leaking to the Pacific Ocean all along and it’s not showing signs of stopping just yet.

It now appears that anywhere from 300 to possibly over 450 tons of contaminated water that contains radioactive iodine, cesium, and strontium-89 and 90, is flooding into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daichi site everyday.

To give you an idea of how bad that actually is, Japanese experts estimate Fukushima’s fallout at 20-30 times as high as as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings in 1945.

There’s a lot you’re not being told. Oh, the information is out there, but you have to dig pretty deep to find it, and you won’t find it on the corporate-owned evening news.”

Some Facts From Andrews research.

LATEST: TEPCO says they believe 10 trillion becquerels of strontium-90 (and also 20 trillion becquerels of cesium-137) have leaked into the ocean from the crippled reactor complex since 5/11. (source). This is a ridiculously low estimate. Also, radioactive tritium levels in the sea (seaport) at Daiichi are creeping up and up and up (we knew that was gonna happen).

RECENT: In the latest mess at Fukushima, one or more of the hundreds of storage tanks at the nuclear complex holding EXTREMELY radioactive liquid waste are leaking. The radioactive liquid waste is flowing into the soil and standing puddles are ‘hot,’ measuring, at surface, about 10 Rem/Hr. Even taken out of context of the ongoing ‘level 7′ Fukushima nuclear disaster, these disastrous spills are considered BAD. As it turns out, the leak crisis has received a distinct crisis categorization, classed ‘a level 3′ on an eight point international scale (INES).

The pediatricians’ general textbook says that reference value of neutrophil [the most abundant type of white blood cells, essential part of immune system] for healthy children (6-12 years old) is […] 4000, but it has shifted to 2500. It is lower than the threshold value of 3000. I think this points at a serious problem. […]

In the summer of 2011, there were many children with bloodshot eyes; and what we saw most were children with dark circles under the eyes. […] we are seeing more cases of sinusitis accompanied with mild case of asthma continuing for longer periods. And when these children spend some time in the West, they get better. If at all possible, I would like them to move away from East Japan. […]

[…] radioactive substances coming from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have reached Tokyo, and huge amounts of contaminated waste is being burned here as well, I cannot deny the possibility that we are inhaling radioactive substances contained in the air. Again, let me repeat that after the nuclear accident, enormous amounts of nuclear substances were released in the environment. Therefore, if we see an increase in symptoms that are different from the ones we’ve seen before, we physicians should “first consider the effects of radioactivity.” […]

Adults

Mita: […] But my real hope is to have not just children but also adults move away from Tokyo.

[…] [The adult] conditions are definitely different compared to how it was before the nuclear accident.

With elderly people, it takes more time for asthma to heal. The medication doesn’t seem to work. We also see more patients with diseases that had been rare before; for example, polymyalgia rheumatica […] Before 3.11, we had one or less patient per year. Now, we treat more than 10 patients at the same time. […]

I think doctors who knew their patients well should become aware of the strange things that were happening to them. […]

According to Professors in Japan, the ‘worst case scenario’ for Fukushima has been reached, the nuclear rods have melted and went through the reactor floors. This story released today from ENENews is disheartening and shares that this situation will continue to be THE major story for world health for humans, fish, bird and animal life across the entire world for decades if not longer. According to the newly released video below, the worst case scenario for Fukushima is also a ‘world-ends-scenario’, an “extinction level event if this mess is not cleaned up, fast.”

Japan Professors: Worst case scenario at Fukushima, nuclear rods melted and went through reactor floors; Contamination is impacting rest of world; Likely that entire Pacific will be affected — Farmer: Gov’t doesn’t have any idea about status of fuel

Kyoto University’s Okada Norio, Yoshio Kajitani, Hirokazu Tatano & Beijing University’s Tao Ye, Peijun Shi: [T]he nuclear accident gradually became a level 7 nuclear event, which is a major accident and the highest level on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), equivalent to the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986. The radiation in the vicinity of the reactor rose steeply, becoming a deadly threat to the local residents […] three units were exposed to level 7 accidents and one unit was exposed to a level 3 incident.

The critical issue in the crisis became the cooling systems failures. […] The high temperature turned most of the internal coolant water into steam, which in turn exposed the fuel rods to air. […] Fuel would escape away from control rods, intensify decay, melt through the reactor floor, and consequently induce a massive release of radioactive isotopes, a worst case scenario. […] Radioactive isotopes released from Fukushima were later detected in North America and other regions in the world. […] The long-term impact of the nuclear crisis to Japan, the Asia-Pacific region, and the entire world is still not fully revealed. […] The radioactive contamination caused by the nuclear accident following the earthquake and tsunami is affecting the rest of the world through atmospheric circulation. The polluted water released by the Tokyo Electric Power Company is likely to affect the entire Pacific Ocean in the coming decades.

Something not tested for to date but mentioned by Straight.com is the risk from strontium 90 and plutonium in Pacific fish. No agency or citizen group is testing for these two isotopes in the food supply, this includes Pacific sea food. The amounts and distribution of these isotopes in the international food supply remain a mystery.

Straight.com also pointed out the other heath risks rarely mentioned when talking about radiation exposure such as heart disease and genetic damage. They spoke to a number of experts, in the end they all agreed there is at least some risk to eating fish with man made radionuclides such as cesium, strontium or plutonium. They disagreed somewhat on the degree of risk. The research also found a similar problem with Canadian seafood testing that we found previously with FDA testing. The fish most at risk for contamination were rarely if ever tested. This tactic gives a false sense of security and leaves the true risk factor unknown. CFIA did some other food testing in 2012 but has refused to release the data even a year later. They claimed it is still being analyzed. This excuse is a non-starter. Citizen groups, farm coops and the Japanese government have all managed to put out radiation testing results for food in a timely manner. This is usually the same day or within a week of conducting the tests.

TEPCO has been testing fish in the port at the plant and within a 20km radius. The types of fish being tested in both locations differs. This may be partially due to the habitat of those fish species or a reluctance to sufficiently test the same species in both locations as it could show contamination is not staying in the port as TEPCO has tried to claim. There is also no 3rd party verification or oversight on their fish testing efforts. Only some of the haul could be being tested or only desired results are reported. The pubic really has no way of knowing and would need to accept TEPCO’s testing on faith. Some of the fish tested by a local university showed higher levels than TEPCO’s testing. A rockfish caught 1.5km from the plant showed 442 bq/kg of cesium. Meanwhile TEPCO’s testing shows much lower in their testing. Kinki University, that found the contaminated rockfish is also working on other fish testing in the Pacific in conjunction with US universities.

Meanwhile Russia is looking to increase their screening of fish due to concerns from Fukushima. Officials expressed concern over the possible re-importation of fish via South Korea or China since screening programs in some countries do not have an actual tracking system.
Japan began efforts this week to get the WTO to intervene in South Korea’s ban of some Japanese seafood after new leaks at Fukushima Daiichi were admitted.

A citizen radiation watchdog group, BQwatcher posted these contamination readings this week, found on Japanese government websites.
Miyagi Full Season → Genki blue uni Kesennuma 8.7 Bq / kg

While the levels are lower than many found around the effected areas of Japan they do show the diversity of contamination. The is obviously much left to do to understand and properly deal with the problem. Despite concerns by a variety of experts no effort is underway to screen seafood for strontium or plutonium.